Vincas Vitkauskas (4 October 1890 – 3 March 1965) was a Lithuanian general. He became commander of the Lithuanian Army after the resignation of Stasys Raštikis in January 1940. In this capacity, Vitkauskas opposed armed resistance to the Soviet occupation in June 1940 and subsequently collaborated with the new Soviet regime.
During World War I, he was mobilized to the Imperial Russian Army and served in the Romanian Front where he became close friends with Antanas Merkys. This relationship proved crucial in Vitkauskas' career. He returned to Lithuania in 1918 and fought in the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. Thanks to Merkys, Vitkauskas became deputy commander of the Lithuanian Military Brigade and commandant of Klaipėda in the aftermath of the Klaipėda Revolt. Despite success in the field and evaluation as a capable officer, his military career was dampened by rumors and suspicions that he sympathized with the Bolsheviks and socialists. He resigned active duty in 1927 and worked as a lecturer at the Higher Officers' Courses in Kaunas. After the completion of training with the German Reichswehr in 1929, Vitkauskas became inspector of the infantry and helped Stasys Raštikis, commander of the army, to implement much needed reforms. He was particularly involved with practical training and military exercises. In October 1939, Vitkauskas led Lithuanian troops to Vilnius – the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which was fiercely contested between Lithuania and Poland since 1920. It was a prominent assignment that brought public recognition.
In November 1939, Merkys became Prime Minister. Raštikis resigned in January 1940 and was replaced by Vitkauskas. When Soviet Union presented an ultimatum on 14 June, Vitkauskas argued against armed resistance. The ultimatum was accepted and Lithuania lost its independence. Vitkauskas collaborated with the new regime becoming Minister of Defense in the People's Government, an elected delegate of the People's Seimas, and a member of the delegation that presented Joseph Stalin with a Lithuanian petition to become one of the republics of the Soviet Union. The Lithuanian Army was reorganized into the 29th Rifle Corps of the Red Army commanded by Vitkauskas. In June 1941, just before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Vitkauskas was sent to the Military Academy of the General Staff in Moscow where he studied and later taught until early 1946. He returned to Lithuania and taught at the University of Kaunas and Kaunas Polytechnic Institute until retirement in 1954.
Biography Early life Vitkauskas was born in the village, then part of the Congress Poland, a puppet state of the Russian Empire. His parents were poor peasants. His father traveled to United States where he worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania for seven years to save up enough money to buy of land in . He continued to work the farm until his death in 1937. Between ages of 7 and 11, Vitkauskas attended a primary people's school in Lankeliškiai but financial difficulties did not allow to continue the education. He remained home and helped his father with farm work. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Vitkauskas and his elder brother helped smuggling publications and weapons from East Prussia to Marijampolė.
In 1908, at the age of 18, Vitkauskas resumed his education as an external student in Marijampolė (1908–12) and Vilkaviškis (1912–13). To earn a living, he worked as a tutor. In 1914, he took high school exams at the 2nd Gymnasium, known as Alekseevskaya (), in Oryol and obtained a high school diploma. He then became a mathematics student at the Moscow State University. In the evenings, he also took classes at the Stroganov Academy of Arts.
World War I In 1916, he was mobilized to the Imperial Russian Army. From 1 June to 1 December, Vitkauskas was a student at the . After graduation, as a praporshchik, he was assigned to the . In January 1917, he was sent to machine gun courses at the . In March, he was sent to Voronezh where he joined the . His machine gun company was moved to the 5th Infantry Regiment, part of the 9th Army, and deployed in the Romanian Front. By the end of the war, he was promoted to podporuchik and commander of the machine gun company. He demobilized in February 1918 and waited until September in Kiev to get the permission from the Germans to return to Lithuania.
Lithuanian Wars of Independence Against the Bermontians
He returned to his native village in October and joined the fledgling Lithuanian government to become the county governor of Vilkaviškis. On 1 February 1919, he volunteered to the newly established Lithuanian Army and was assigned as the commandant of Raseiniai. There he organized a company and faced the threat of the Bermontians.
On 21 October, an ammunition shipment to Raseiniai was attacked by the Bermontians near Šimkaičiai. The Lithuanians defended and killed six attackers. In retaliation, the Bermontians attacked Jurbarkas on 25 October and Raseiniai on 26 October. They looted and took valuables. In Raseiniai, they searched for Vitkauskas but unable to find him captured lieutenant Vincas Rimavičius and later executed him. Vitkauskas and other men retreated to Girkalnis and Betygala.
At the end of May 1919, Vitkauskas' brother Juozas, who served in the Red Army and fought Lithuanians in the Lithuanian–Soviet War, was captured and executed by the Lithuanian Army. That cast a doubt on Vitkauskas' loyalties and on 15 January 1920 he was demoted to commander of a machine gun company with the 7th Infantry Regiment. On 10 July, he was promoted to the commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment. At the time, the battalion was stationed in Vilnius.
Against Poland On 21 September, during the Battle of the Niemen River, he was given urgent orders to depart to and take up defensive position along the Neman River. At the time, the battalion had 500 men and only 5 officers and no telephones. In Hoža, Vitkauskas learned that Lithuanian forces moved to Druskininkai where Polish forces concentrated their attack. Vitkauskas contacted the commander of Russian forces in Grodno who promised to send 48th and 49th Infantry Regiments but they never showed. Polish forces took Druskininkai and began their advance towards Hoža. Vitkauskas ordered a retreat to , a railway station on the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway, but Polish forces got there first. The battalion was cut off from other Lithuanian units. Vitkauskas then decided to march back to . The next day they marched to but it was also taken by the Polish Army. The battalion turned to Vasilishki and pushed to Lida where it found some men from the 1st Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment. Vitkauskas managed to get permission from the Russian commander to gather the men and continue to Ashmyany which they reached on 30 September 1919. From there, they turned to Vilnius and reunited with Lithuanian forces. In total, to escape the encirclement and capture, Vitkauskas led some 750 men who marched in 7 days in very difficult circumstances due to lack of food for the men and feed for the horses.
While the 7th Infantry Regiment was recuperating and regrouping in Vilnius, Polish General Lucjan Żeligowski began an attack towards the city on 8 October 1920. The action became known as the Żeligowski's Mutiny. Vitkauskas commanded the 1st and the 3rd Battalions of the 7th Infantry Regiment and took the positions across the Vilnius–Ukmergė road north of Vilnius. On 15–16 October, his men successfully attacked Polish positions near Riešė but Vitkauskas was injured. For his actions in fighting the Poles, Vitkauskas was awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis (1st type, 1st class).
Interwar Lithuania Stalling career Despite success in the field and evaluation as a capable officer, Vitkauskas was demoted to commander of a company of the 7th Infantry Regiment on 2 August 1921. Minister of Defence Konstantinas Žukas thought that Vitkauskas was a Bolshevik sympathizer. However, on 6 September, he was transferred to the staff of the Lithuanian Military Brigade (), a unit established in February 1920 to maintain public security. At the time, the brigade was commanded by Antanas Merkys, a friend from the Romanian Front, who trusted Vitkauskas to become his deputy. Vitkauskas officially became the commander of the brigade's staff on 12 October 1922. In December, he began studies at the Higher Officers' Courses in Kaunas but the studies were interrupted by the Klaipėda Revolt in January 1923. He was one of the Lithuanian soldiers sent to stage the revolt. Under the codename Vilius Kremeris, he was head of the administration of the rebel forces. In April, he was called to become commandant of Klaipėda. This position was also Merkys' doing – he was a secretary to Antanas Smetona, the Commissioner of the Klaipėda Region. A month later he was promoted to major.
When the office of the commandant of Klaipėda was liquidated in November 1923, he was reassigned to the 3rd military district as commander of the 1st general staff. Concurrently, from January to September 1924, he was the commander of the staff of the 3rd Infantry Division. In September 1924, Vitkauskas began law studies at the University of Lithuania. Though he completed most of his courses and examinations, he never graduated. In February 1925, he was temporarily assigned as the commander of the 9th Infantry Regiment, stationed in Marijampolė. After the May 1926 elections to the Third Seimas, Christian Democrats lost their majority and Vitkauskas' command was made permanent and he was awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis (2nd type, 1st class).
In December 1926, Vitkauskas together with many other military officers traveled to Kaunas for the celebration of the 60th birthday of President Kazys Grinius. The occasion was used to stage the military coup d'état that brought Antanas Smetona to power. The morning after the coup, all commanders of military units were ordered to report to the General Staff. That night Vitkauskas visited his in-laws and did not receive the order. When he did not report on time, rumors started spreading about his political leanings reviving old suspicions of his socialist sympathies. The new government did not trust Vitkauskas and started gathering intelligence on him. He kept his command of the 9th Infantry Regiment because of Antanas Merkys, who was now Minister of Defence. However, Vitkauskas felt the distrust and submitted a resignation which was granted on 4 May 1927. He became an instructor of the Higher Officers' Courses and worked there until mid-1930.
Career resumed
In April–November 1929, Vitkauskas along with pulkininkai Aleksandras Plechavičius and Oskaras Urbonas was sent for a training with the 7th (Bavarian) Division of the Reichswehr. After his return, he was sent to a six-month higher courses for officers in Kaunas and, upon the completion, was promoted to the inspector of the infantry on 1 July 1930 and the inspector of the army on 1 April 1934. The armed forces were reorganized by Stasys Raštikis and Vitkauskas once again became the inspector of the infantry in August 1935. He continued to improve his military knowledge by inspecting German proving grounds and observing their military exercises, learning about anti-aircraft defense in Switzerland, and touring infantry schools and shooting rages in the Soviet Union. He further briefly visited France, Belgium, Italy, Denmark. In Lithuania, he spent a significant amount of time at the proving grounds educating others on machine guns, anti-aircraft and anti-tank defenses, mortars. He was active both in military practice (e.g. participated in military exercises) and theory (e.g. wrote 12 statutes, contributed to military press, published a book on heavy machine guns). In 1938, Vitkauskas was elected chairman of the officers' club (Karininkų ramovė).